July/August - Breaststroke

posted 13 Jul 2011, 05:16 by David Holmes

Because there are only a few training sessions in August we've grouped it in with July.

Breaststroke – Is similar to fly in the way to body moves. Shoulders and hips move up and down to create a similar flowing swimming movement. Main focus points are similar to butterfly too, the only place the hands stop moving is when the arms are fully stretched out in front during the glide phase of the stroke. Again, as with butterfly, as the hands start the pull the shoulders begin to lift up and the hips sink slightly. This is when you start to lift your head to take a breath. The hands should then whip around FAST until they are back to the starting position, making sure they stay close to the surface. This is when the head lowers back down (looking to the bottom of the pool, for a better streamline).

The breaststroke kick is the only one out of all the strokes that has a recovery phase that can slow the swimmer down significantly. The goal is to reduce this affect as much as possible so that the swimmer maintains as much forward movement as possible. The easiest way to do this is keep everything in a line - so the knees and ankles stay within the width of the swimmer. So if they were swimming towards you you would not be able to see their knees or feet during the recovery. During the propulsive phase the swimmers feet should be turned out and should be wider than the knees in order to catch as much water as possible.